FBI reportedly opened probe after Comey firing into whether President Trump secretly worked for Russia

President Trump leads a roundtable discussion on border security at the White House on Friday. (Jacquelyn Martin / AP)

Top FBI officials became so concerned by President Trump’s actions in the days before and after he fired James Comey that they opened an investigation into whether he was secretly working for the Russian government against U.S. interests, according to a report Friday.

The explosive probe, launched by U.S. law enforcement brass after Trump axed Comey as FBI director in May 2017, was picked up by Robert Mueller upon his appointment as special counsel later that month, multiple people familiar with the matter told The New York Times.

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It was not clear whether Mueller has continued the investigation as part of his inquiry into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.

A spokesman for Muller declined to comment.

The FBI probe reportedly had a separate component that Mueller is publicly known to be pursuing still: whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey.

The President explicitly admitted in a TV interview after Comey’s firing that he moved to boot the FBI chief at least in part because of “this Russia thing” — a reference to the bureau’s nascent investigation into Russia’s pro-Trump meddling in the 2016 election.

Law enforcement officials reasoned that if Trump had booted Comey to stop the Russia probe, it would be a matter of national security if it prevented the U.S. intelligence community from learning the full extent of the Kremlin’s attack on the election, the sources said.

Federal officials grew increasingly concerned and moved toward opening a probe after the President privately asked Comey to pledge loyalty to him — and then asked the FBI director to end a probe into Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who has since pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russians, the sources said.

The final straw prompting the FBI probe was Trump’s interview with NBC News two days after Comey’s firing.

“I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it,” Trump said in the interview. “And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.”

The White House pushed back against the latest twist in the swirling Trump-Russia saga.

“This is absurd,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “James Comey was fired because he’s a disgraced partisan hack, and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, who was in charge at the time, is a known liar fired by the FBI. Unlike President Obama, who let Russia and other foreign adversaries push America around, President Trump has actually been tough on Russia.”

McCabe declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

No evidence has emerged publicly that Trump was secretly operating as a Russian agent, but a number of his top associates — including Flynn and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort — have been indicted and pleaded guilty to Russia-linked crimes.